Playing Catch: A Baseball Romance (10 page)

Kirk removed himself from the bed, feeling like an intruder to her pain. He was a baseball catcher, and he relied on his intuition to tell him if his pitcher was struggling, or if the batter was looking for a certain type of pitch. Right now, his spidey sense was telling him to leave her alone, that she’d already revealed too much for her comfort level.

“I’ll let you rest. Do you need anything? Water? Are you hungry?”

“I’m fine, Kirk.” Her voice was smooth, but expressionless. “I’m always fine. Thank you.”

Slowly, he backed to the door and let himself out. He wasn’t an idiot. PTSD. Sex addiction. Detachment syndrome.

It all added up to sexual abuse at a young age, maybe as far back as she could remember.

The chill that grabbed ahold of him brought him to his knees and he collapsed in front of the loveseat, holding his head between his arms.

His stomach soured and he swallowed bile, but his heart churned and overflowed with a swirling set of emotions that threw him off-balance.

Kirk was not a man who cared about anyone other than himself. He was no hero, definitely not a protector, a guy who worried about women and saved them from bad guys. Leave the saving to the SEALs, the firemen, and the tough cops. He was a ballplayer, a charmer, and an entertainer.

But Jeanine was different. She wasn’t a damsel in distress. She was the opposite of needy—a tough cookie.

And now that he knew—now that he’d pried her hardened shell off, had taken her in his arms and kissed her tenderly, even lovingly—now that he’d worried over her and caught a glimpse of her past, he could no longer walk away without leaving a big hole in his heart. The fact that he knew, but did not try to fix it would kill him. To all her friends and associates, she was perfectly put together, and he doubted any one of them knew what was really going on behind her tough façade. She would never ask for help, would never admit to needing it.

But he’d seen the little girl who’d been running through her entire life proving to herself and others that she was fine, just fine, perfectly fine.

Only she wasn’t, not by a long shot—not without him.

I
loved
the basement and I hated the basement.

When I was fourteen, I moved in with the Simpsons, George and Karen and their daughter Madge. They needed the money because Karen had drank herself out of her bartending job.

They put me in the basement where George had his art studio. He painted canvases full of dark, hideous monsters and demons stretched over the nubile white bodies of young virgins.

Karen was worried I’d be afraid of the paintings, but since I’d never had a shoulder to cry on or anyone to comfort my nightmares, I realized dreams couldn’t hurt me.

When George was at work, I’d hide in the basement. Upstairs Karen would get drunk and pull Madge’s hair. Madge was nine at the time and she hated me, so I left her alone. The basement was my haven, until George came home.

He started with kisses and touching. Kid stuff. One night, I woke up at the snap of my panties’ elastic waistband. He was sitting over me, but he didn’t say anything. I didn’t ask what he was doing or what he was looking at.

He kissed me on the forehead and left me alone—for a while.

Another night I woke with a start. George was making funny sounds. My blanket was pulled down and so were my panties. When he saw me open my eyes, he stopped moving his fist. He held a finger to his lips and told me to be quiet. And then he left.

But after that, he would come to me every night. He would grab my head between his hands and kiss me, jamming his horrid tongue into my mouth. He reeked of stale cigarette smoke and he was always rank and sweaty after his day job as a PE teacher. And while he was slobbering over me, he would rub that stick between his legs over my belly until it got all wet and sticky.

Karen got suspicious one night. She stumbled her way down the stairs, slurring and calling for him. “What are you doing down here? You came back late after the game and haven’t even eaten dinner.”

I don’t remember how he got rid of her, but shortly after that, he got the idea of painting me. He moved a cot into his studio and he draped it with a black velvet throw and told me to lie on it. Now he could tell Karen he was painting—all the time, and that drunk skunk would never come down because she was afraid of monsters and demons and basements.

I wore a swimsuit—at first, but it wasn’t long before he ordered me to pose naked. He would run his eyes over my body, then touch me, adjusting my arms and legs and make me stay very, very still. It was better than being upstairs with crazy Karen who burned Madge with an iron and beat her with a kitchen spoon.

No one beat me. I only had to love George. But I hated kissing him. I hated his taste. It was worse than what he did between my legs. After the first time, it didn’t hurt, and sometimes he even made me feel good—real good.

But the kissing was never good.

Until Kirk.

I slammed him against the wall and jammed my tongue into his mouth, raping him with my lips. I wanted to control him like George controlled me. I intruded into him, I bit, and fought, but he was too strong, and instead, he slayed me and my demons and monsters, and when he kissed me on the airplane, visions of daisies and butterflies and ice cream cones danced around me and soft, sweet music played in my mind like a string quartet at a garden party with kittens and puppies scampering in the fresh-cut grass.

I felt almost normal.

K
irk woke early
the next morning and packed. He and Jeanine had to catch an early flight, and he was due at the stadium by noon. He wandered into the sitting room and set up the coffeemaker.

Sleep had eluded him until two hours before dawn, and he was playing in the game this evening. What had he been thinking to take this trip with her? Some teams enforced a curfew during spring training, but since his was based in Phoenix, the players were allowed to do whatever they wanted as long as they showed up on time.

The scent of strong coffee punched through the clouds in his brain and evidently, it also attracted Jeanine. She opened her door, completely dressed in a pair of skinny black jeans, a soft beige top covered with a camel-colored suede leather blazer. Her heels were high, but made for traveling, and she pulled her rolling carry-on behind her.

She gave him a plastic smile, polished to perfection. “You slept well last night?”

“As well as could be. Have some coffee.”

“I’d love some.” She checked her phone. “We’re still early, but the taxi will be here in half an hour.”

He poured her a cup. “Do you take sugar or cream?”

“None. Black and strong. The way I like it.” She propped her carry-on next to the wall. “I’m so refreshed from this little getaway and hope you enjoyed yourself, too.”

“Apparently not quite as much as you did.” He set his cup down and drilled her with a sideways glance.

“What goes on in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” She flipped her hand at him dismissively. “Sorry, I was too tired to compare notes.”

“We should do it again.” He set his cup down and idly flipped through the complimentary newspaper the hotel had left, as if anyone still read the news.

“We should.” She grabbed ahold of a section of the newspaper and lifted it in front of her eyes.

Okay, so she was going to pretend nothing had happened—that she hadn’t fallen apart in front of him and admitted she was messed up—that she could no longer do the one-night stands, that she hadn’t broken a man’s finger, and that she’d given him a glimpse into her heart.

That nothing he said or did affected her. That she didn’t even care if he’d screwed Susan, Anne, Jill, and Clare all night long and had crawled back to the suite covered with lipstick and champagne.

Kirk pulled the paper from Jeanine and bent over her. He tipped her chin and pulled her toward his lips, but stopped short of touching them.

“When we get back to Phoenix, I want you to move in with me.”

“Move in with you? Why?”

“Just do it.” He couldn’t even explain it to himself, except he was a man who could never put a book down until he’d finished it. He also never peeked at the ending.

“I’m a grown woman. I’m twenty-nine and have my own place.”

“I know you do, but I want you at my place. I want all the men in Phoenix to know you’re living with me, and I want you to come to terms with what has happened to you.”

She leveled him a hostile glare, her eyes narrowed, her jaw clenching, her lips pressed firm.

“Nothing happened to me, Kirk. I have no idea what you’re insinuating.”

“Then do me a favor.” He picked her cell phone off the table. “Add me to your ‘Find Friends’ app.”

“What? So you can stalk me?”

“No. So I can find you if you ever get yourself into the kind of trouble you got into last night. You were damn lucky.”

“There was no trouble last night. We had a good time and we’ll do it again.”

“Definitely. We’ll do this again.” He scrolled to her app and sent himself an invite.

“What did you just do?”

“Something all good wingmen do for their buddies.” He handed her phone back to her. “Ready to go back to Phoenix and tackle the rest of the week?”

“You betcha.” She frowned as she put her phone away. “You do know about the wingman’s code of silence, right?”

He made a zipping his lip motion. “Everything is safe with me.
You
are safe with me.”

She huffed and a glimmer of a smile warmed her face. “You want to kiss all the way back to Phoenix, don’t you?”

Yes! She remembered. Kirk didn’t allow himself to answer her. It was better not to let on how much he cared. Not only did he want to kiss her, he had to convince her to seek professional help.

Since he had no clue how he would get her to seek help, the only thing he could do was keep her close to his chest and be there for the tiny moments when she’d let him penetrate her walls.

His phone beeped and he responded to the invite for the app. Her dot showed her to be in the same location as he. It was surprising how easily she’d allowed him to track her.

Maybe there was hope after all. He picked up his coffee cup and the newspaper, and when he looked across, Jeanine was smoothing her hair and preening as if nothing ruffled her calm exterior, reminding him of the scrappy little homeless kitten he rescued the day he first saw his mother in bed with his baseball coach.

T
he flight
out of Las Vegas was smooth with none of the turbulence they’d experienced on the way over. They weren’t in first class, but the cabin was empty enough that they had the row to themselves. There was no kissing. Kirk had wanted to talk, and since Jeanine wasn’t talking, he wasn’t kissing, either. Instead, he dozed off.

Which was for the better.

He had a way of dredging up memories, if only by comparison. Last night had been turbulent. The memories kept bubbling up, oozing out of the box she’d buried them in. Would she ever be free from her past? If only she could take a forget-pill and select the memories she wanted to delete. Other people supposedly were able to do that, repressing their memories, but for Jeanine, everything was as clear as if it were yesterday.

She accepted a drink from the flight attendant, not bothering to wake Kirk. She didn’t deserve his kindness, the way he tried to comfort her after her close call with the assholes. She hadn’t missed how he’d called her ‘baby,’ how he’d thanked God she hadn’t been hurt.

He’d told her she wasn’t a tease, that she could withdraw consent at any time.

As if any man would withdraw. Jeanine almost snorted the drink through her nose at that. And all that coming from a player, Mr. Catch and Release. Unbelievable.

She swallowed the rest of her cocktail and closed her eyes. He’d told her to trust her gut, but he didn’t know how gutted she was. How could she trust a broken compass?

She was either a whore or a lover. George told her if she loved him, then she wasn’t a whore. So she had said she loved him, because truly, love was just a word people threw around to control others.

It was better to love than to be fucked like a whore.

Or not.

Jeanine balled up her fists.
Whores don’t kiss. Whores survive. Whores don’t give a shit about love.

Except Kirk gave a shit about her. Why?

She opened her eyes to peek at Kirk, to revel at his beauty, the golden brown locks of hair, the angular face and the strong jaw, the lips that worshiped her and kissed her as if she weren’t a whore.

Kirk’s eyes snapped open and she startled, jolted in her seat. She turned her face to the window and stared at the clouds below. She didn’t want to talk, to feel, to hope. He was too tempting, too seductive, and way too nice, and her life was hard—trying to survive while not self-destructing.

He lifted the armrest between them and put his hand around her shoulder. “Come here. Rest on me. You’ll talk when you’re ready.”

Despite willing herself not to want this comfort, not to seek his embrace, if only so she could remain strong, she curved into him like a baseball caught in his mitt and allowed him to hold her. It was safe. They were on an airplane, surrounded by people, and he wasn’t trying to hook up with her. He wouldn’t have left her room the night before if he’d wanted what every other man had wanted. If so, the friend-zone wasn’t something to be dreaded. Maybe it wasn’t so bad at all to have a friend who cared. Maybe for once in her life, she could lean on someone, let someone take the load off her, believe someone would care for a whore.

“Who are you?” The words slipped from her mouth before she could take them back, so she repeated them. “Who are you, Kirk Kennedy?”

He rubbed her arm and shoulder, her back, and kissed her on the side of her head, rocking her with both arms around her.

“Who am I?” He studied her, as if memorizing her facial features. “I’m not what everyone thinks. I’m not the image on the cereal boxes, the guy at the swanky parties, the player on and off the field. That’s what everyone sees.”

She melted into his warmth, the woodsy scent on his skin, the strength wrapping her like a snug blanket, and the soothing deepness of his voice.

“So, why are you all those things if that’s not who you are?” She played with the buttons on his shirt, tracing her finger up and down and around them. “Why are you showing me a different side?”

“Because you’re a lot like me. You’re not who you think you are. I saw that last night when we talked about kissing.”

“Then why won’t you kiss me?” Ugh, that sounded demanding. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“But, you are.” He called her on it, tilting her chin. “I could kiss you all day and all night, but I need you to do two things.”

“Two things?” She tensed and moved so their bodies weren’t pressed against each other. Of course, he wanted something. What man didn’t? Everything came with conditions. She should have known better than to take comfort in his arms.

“Yes, two. First, I want you to move in with me. I’ve an extra room.”

“You know that’s weird?”

“Yes, but you need intervention, and from what I can tell, you have no family and no close friends.”

“I have Marcia and Brock. Ryan and the guys on the team. I have plenty of friends.”

Why did he make her feel so defensive? Why should she care if he thought her friendless? But that wasn’t the real issue, was it?

“What’s this about an intervention?” She drilled her eyes at him, narrowed into slits. “What gives you the right?”

He was getting too close for comfort. Stifling. But he couldn’t possibly know her secrets, could he?

Kirk held his gaze steady, seemingly reading right through her. Jeanine averted her face and shoved him away. He wanted something from her. Two things.

“What’s the second?” she asked, even though she knew better. He wanted sex. Plain and simple. Except she was no longer a teenager needing a roof over her head and food on the table. She was no longer an idiot who believed love was better than being a whore.

Whores got paid. Lovers paid, and paid, and paid.

“Jeanine?” Kirk touched her face and she cringed. “You’re not going to like this, but I want you to find a therapist—a professional to help you.”

“Help me?” Her voice squeaked through her constricted throat. “What makes you think I need help?”

“You admitted as much last night. The sex addiction. Feeling like a freak. You’re putting yourself in danger. You’ve been lucky so far. But play the wrong guy and things could go bad, fast.”

His words drew chills over her entire body. She gripped her arms and rubbed them—anything to rub heat into her. But icy sludge slithered and crawled all over her skin. He was right, of course. She had at least one stalker, maybe more.

But she couldn’t admit her fear to him or anyone else.

“I don’t need professional help. I can take care of it myself.” She reclined her seatback and took a deep breath. “You assume, as people do, that because I was a foster child, I’d been abused. That I need help. Fortunately, it’s not true. I was never abused. I was not a victim. As for the men thing, I can stop any time I want. You know what’s funny? I haven’t gotten laid since the night I ran into you. Maybe you’re the cure—my lucky charm.”

“Your lucky charm?” He enunciated those words so plainly and firmly that they hurt.

But how could he know? How could he or anyone understand. She was not abused. She was loved. George had loved her—until someone told.

And now, George was out of jail and he would be angry. Thirteen years was a long time, and child “abusers” didn’t fare well in prison. He would no longer love her. Would he even care where she was and what she was doing? Would he try to contact her?

Would he marry her like he’d promised? He’d started divorce proceedings. He’d reported Karen for the burn on Madge’s arm. He’d got Tina’s social worker to take her away from their home. And despite Jeanine assuring her social worker she’d never been abused, that she’d always wanted it, and that she loved George, he’d been taken away and she’d been set free of the system.

She hadn’t been his lucky charm at all.

She snapped back to Kirk, her stomach grinding on itself and her fists clenched. “Stop playing with me. I’m not your project. I’m not moving in with you, and I’m not going to see a shrink. My best friend was an abnormal psychology major in college. She sees nothing wrong with me doing what I do. What makes you think otherwise?”

“Are you talking about Marcia, Brock’s wife? If so, she’s got a lot going on in her own life. I doubt you ever let her see who you really are.”

“How dare you sit there and judge?” She crossed her arms. “Speaking of Marcia, what the hell’s wrong with Brock? Why isn’t he helping her? You must know what’s going on.”

His pupils drilled to a pinpoint and he breathed deeply through his nostrils. “One thing at a time. You need help. I’m not judging you. As for Marcia and Brock, you need to ask them yourself.”

“Urrgh.” She shoved him. “When I get off this plane, I don’t ever want to see you again. Don’t come to my bar. Don’t call me. Don’t text me.”

Instead of answering, he firmly pulled her into his arms and held her still. The airplane had started its descent to Sky Harbor already and the seatbelt sign was lit.

She couldn’t go anywhere for at least twenty minutes. But she wouldn’t let his touch break her resolve. She’d been strong and on her own for so long. She could handle it. She had a problem, true. But she’d break her habit on her own. No more one-night stands. No more men. No more risky behavior. She was smart enough to see that. She didn’t need Kirk to take care of her.

She’d been on her own since sixteen. She’d gotten her high school degree by passing the GED and taken Karen’s bartending skills to her first job—tending bar for a man who paid her with room and board in return for sex, of course.

But since Kirk was here for the next twenty minutes, and they both had their seatbelts on, and no one was going anywhere, she’d close her eyes and rest—draw strength from him, breathe in his manly scent, let him warm her soul, and at the end of the Jetway, she’d turn her back and leave him behind.

Until then, she’d cling to him and experience father, mother, sister, brother, friend, lover, and maybe even God, knowing that someone cared, and someone saw through her carefully cultivated shell, and someone hadn’t been repelled.

If only that were enough.